Scuttlebutt Europe #3615 - 23 June

Brought to you by Seahorse magazine, Scuttlebutt Europe is a digest of sailing news and opinions, regatta results, new boat and gear information and letters from sailors -- with a European emphasis. Contributions welcome, send to

The Fleet Is In. Warrior One Leads Based on Wednesday's provisional results, Warrior Won, the Xp44 skippered by Christopher Sheehan out of Larchmont YC has emerged as the St David's Lighthouse winner for the 50th Thrash to the Onion Patch, the 2016 Newport Bermuda Race. She finished Tuesday morning at 10:10:25 and her corrected time was 70:40:03.

The St. David's Light House Trophy goes to the corrected time winner of the largest division. This year Warrior Won defeated 70 boats vying for the silver lighthouse replica. Only amateurs are allowed to drive the boats in the St. David's Lighthouse Division

Second place in the St. David's Lighthouse Division goes to the little Cal 40, Flyer, owned by Douglas Abbott. She finished Wednesday morning at 7:20:24 with a corrected time of 71:33:05. High Noon, the first 'Traditional' boat to finish, came third on corrected time.

After a slow approach to Bermuda, the Newport Bermuda race organizers expect the entire fleet to be in Hamilton Harbour Wednesday night. There were nine boats moored at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club marina overnight. At 08:00 this morning three more had made their way around from St. George's where yachts are asked to stay after arriving after dark. By mid-afternoon 102 boats had finished off St. David's Head in Bermuda. Another 25 were closing in on the line. 133 boats started in Newport and nine had retired during the race for various mechanical problems or gear failures.

Erwan Tabarly Wins Figaro First Leg It's Erwan Tabarly (Armor Lux) who first crossed the finishing line of the first leg of the Solitaire Le Figaro Bompard, of Deauville Sunday, June 19th at 13:02. He crossed the finish line at 22:27 and 54 seconds (French time) after a course of 461 miles, shortened twice due to lack of wind. It is finally near Needles, emblematic tip of the Isle of Wight that was played the outcome of this incredible stage.

This first act lasted for Erwan, 3 days 09 hours 25 minutes and 54 seconds making it one of the longest stages of the history of the race. Only 7 minutes 19 minutes later Yoann Richomme (Skipper Macif 2014) who took second place while Charlie Dalin (Skipper Macif 2015) completes the podium.

Kiel Week * J/70 European Championship It is the second European Championship of the young J/70 class, and the registration numbers for the European Championship of the keel boat did almost rise up to 100. 96 boats from 15 nations are in the list of registered crews to start tomorrow the J/70 Europeans, which will take place during Kiel Week (18. until 26. June). A crew from Chile and one from Brazil travelled to Kiel. Five Italian crews, that dominated the European Championship in 2015 in Monaco, two Spanish and two Monegasque crews have registeed,

The European Championship was started with the parade of the nations this Wednesday, 22. June at 7:30pm and the following opening ceremony in the Kiel Week Lounge in Kiel-Schilksee, before the boats will be fighting to gain the title from Thursday, 23. June, until Sunday, 26. June, on race course Delta. Altogether elven races are scheduled on four race days (with the first start on Thursday at 12pm).

Kieler Woche (National German Championships) traditionally starts with an Offshore Race. This was the first offshore with our Italia 9.98 and the boat performed really well.

We tried out our new set of sails, the programs for navigation and we could push the boat under very nice weather conditions: no rain and good winds.

3rd day: we are the German National Champions!

We struggled a bit the first race due to choppy waves and no stable wind. The boat performance downwind was very good. After a difficult race with big shifts we finish 3rd.

The second race we battled with the reigning European Champion, which was nice and challenging. With light winds they were quite fast because of their genoa and good sailors on board. We had a great start together with them and the fight continued through the race. And this last race was won by us making us even without sailing the last race the German National Champions!.

4th day We are already German Champion with one race to go, and big points ahead. Today looks like we will be sailing with rain and shifty light wind. And today, the closing race we sail another bullet!

We will use this race as all the others to make sure crew and boat are ready to race the Worlds next month in Copenhagen ( orcworlds2016.com )

Round Two Fast40+ Race Circuit This weekend's RORC IRC National Championship will feature 11 teams from the FAST40+ Class, taking part in the second round of the 2016 FAST40+ Race Circuit. Described by the Royal Ocean Racing Club as 'the cream of IRC', the FAST40+ Class will have over one hundred top professional and corinthian crew, relishing the prospect of three days of high-octane action. The FAST40+ boats will have their own class start for this prestigious event on tight Solent courses.

France Gunning For Further 'Roast Beef' Silverware After another commanding performance in last year's Rolex Fastnet Race, France is lining up to claim further silverware from the Royal Ocean Racing Club's trophy cabinet - this time the Brewin Dolphin Commodores' Cup. A win for France would mark the tenth anniversary of their last victory in the RORC's biennial event for three boat teams with Corinthian crews, that this year takes place over 23-30th July.

According to Jean-Philippe Cau, President of the Union Nationale de la Course au Large (UNCL), which was tasked with selecting the France teams, initially they had around 15 interested parties wishing to compete and intended to have four teams. However he notes "in fact two French boats have joined other teams." Philippe Bourgeois' Dunkerque - Les Dunes de Flandre is part of Flanders North Sea, and another has joined a team yet to be announced.

Leading Team GBR Blue is Michael Blair, Cobra (King 40), joining him are James Neville's Ino (HH42) and Tom Kneen, Sunrise (JPK 1080). This will be Keen's first Commodores' Cup and he will draw on the experience of the others in his team.

Randox Health Sigma 33 UK & Irish Championships Royal Ulster Yacht Club, Bangor, Co Down, Ireland: Three days of great racing on the open waters of Belfast Lough were enjoyed by nineteen Sigma 33s last weekend. Ten races were scheduled and with varying winds and weather over the event all ten were fully completed. Visitors had come from Cornwall, Liverpool, Waterford, Isle of Man, Glenarm and points round the Clyde to join the Belfast Lough based crews for the Class UK and Irish Championships sponsored by Randox Health and supported by Ards and North Down Borough Council.

The racing was close enough that after seven races on Friday and Saturday there were six winners.

Sunday saw three races sailed in the only damp weather of the event and the Bradshaw/Gallagher team on Busy Beaver were still in good form taking honours in Races 8 & 9. It was left to the Class Chairman, Paul Prentice, and the crew in Squawk to finish the event the way they had started with the win in Race 10. -- Fiona Hicks

Nautical Impostors, Con-Artists And Other Vagabonds The Naval Architect who wasn't

Guest editorial from Captain E. S. Geary, FRICS, FRINA, FCMS

Management companies, employers, HR professionals, and head-hunters report that upwards of 40% of the CV's they receive contain intentionally inflated or exaggerated qualifications, non existent credentials or falsified certificates of training. Because the legal consequences of misrepresentation in English Law and English Tort Law addressed in the Misrepresentation Act 1967 can be quite severe professional organizations and employers must exercise caution and diligence. A misrepresentation may be made fraudulently, negligently, or non-negligently (innocently) which requires that all CV's or other documents attesting to a persons training, experience, qualifications, and credentials must always be carefully vetted and verified. In some cases fraudulent misrepresentation is considered criminal.

Before they are accepted as members professional maritime organizations such as those of Engineers, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the Royal Institution of Naval Architects, and the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers in the USA carefully vet and verify members' claims of training, qualifications, continuing education and that they adhere to a strict Code of Professional Conduct. Unfortunately some surveyor organizations in the United Kingdom do not.

Classification Societies such as ABS, Lloyd's, GL/DNV, and BV require and maintain high standards with continuing education and training for their surveyors which sadly is not the case with many independent organizations and self-employed yacht surveyors. One example is a 100 year old UK surveyor organization that advertises and promotes services of condition and valuation surveys through what they describe as their Large Yacht Group (LYG). The Organization encourages unsuspecting clients to engage their services and while some may be competent in limiting their report to a yacht's condition, they fail to disclose that none of these LYG surveyors hold professional qualifications or accreditation to conduct valuation surveys in compliance with the legal requirements of the International Valuations Standards (IVS) or the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) in the United States. Another case of misrepresentation and negligence by the same organization allowed one of their surveyor members to falsely promote his expertise in marine valuations while fraudulently representing himself as a naval architect.

Extreme Sailing Series In Cardiff The Welsh capital's flagship waterfront development is the stage for four days of intense action in Act 3 of the 2016 season.

It's the fifth time the Extreme Sailing Series crews have done battle in Cardiff so they know all too well what they're facing over the coming days - a super-tight stadium racecourse and plenty of breeze.

But just to make things even more testing it's the first time they will have competed in the Series' new GC32 catamarans

Phil Lawrence, race director of the Extreme Sailing Series, said fans can expect plenty of on-the-water entertainment over the course of Act 3, with decent wind forecast. "The wind is looking light for Thursday morning but it will build throughout the day," he said. "The forecast for the rest of the week is looking good - so expect some great racing."

Racing begins tomorrow at 2pm. Fans in the UK can watch the racing live on BT Sport on the final day, while fans online can watch the racing live on the official YouTube channel on 25-26 June, 1530-1700 BST daily.

Tornado European Open, Mixed and Youth Championship Cesenatico, Italy: 1st day of the 2016 European championship in front of the beautiful beach of Cesenatico, Italy. The Italians welcomed us with nice food and drinks and the races started on time.

The light wind was coming from the northeast and its speed varied from 6 to 9 knots.

The sailors seem to be ready for a lot of action as they put a lot of pressure on the starts.

The best ones for today were Nick Mavros and Alex Tagaropoulos from Greece who scored a second and a first in the two races of the day respectively.

The Swiss guys, Steiner Marcel and Steiner Joerg, stand on second after scoring a third and a fourth. Maria Tsaousidou and Marc Baier also had a great performance and stand on third. It is them who stand first in the Mixed division!!

The latest entrant into the large performance cat market comes from an all-French design and build team working under the management of Dubai-based Tan Yachts - which was founded by entrepreneur Xavier Bouin. Looks very roomy